My first and hopefully last ambulance ride. July 13, 2009

Yesterday we sent our two boys over to a friends house to swim, play, and spend the night.  They love playing at Chuckie’s house and we are glad for them to go because we very much enjoy the family and feel very comfortable with them spending the night with them.  John had mentioned that maybe he and I could go and do something since the boys weren’t going to be home.  We hadn’t made a real plan yet but I had already checked movie times for “The Proposal”. 

The boys had been gone for about an hour when Ann, Chuckie’s mom, called me and said that she thought that she needed me to come get Nathan.  I asked her what the problem was and she said that Nathan was complaining about a bad headache.  I asked her if I could talk to him so that I could assess how close my movie night was to being “ruined”. 

I know what you’re thinking, “What a terrible mom, all you can think about is yourself!”   Now before you get all mad at me for “not caring” let me just say that my children get headaches and usually it just requires a pep talk, prayer, and Tylenol and they are good to go.  I asked Nate if he wanted me to come get him and then the words I were dreading, “yeah, it hurts”.  So knowing that “my” night was a bust, I hopped up and got ready to leave and get him. 

A few minutes after I hung up with Nathan, Ann called me back to tell me what really happened.  Nate had been jumping on the trampoline by himself while her husband was in the backyard weed eating.  Nate jumped off the trampoline to the ground and fell to his knees and when he did his head snapped forward and then back real hard.  He jumped up and ran into the house and laid down on Chuckie’s bed and started to cry and when Ann asked him what was wrong he didn’t tell the whole story, just that his head hurt.

John and I got to her house to check Nathan out and when we tried to get him up to go he began to tremble with the pain and cry uncontrollably.  Now a momma knows when her baby is hurt and all of my mommy sensors were screaming, “he is really hurt, don’t move him”.  After a bit of back and forth “discussion” with John over the benefit of ambulance transport versus my minivan, 911 was called.  This of course caused a stir in Ann’s neighborhood.  Truth be told we all love to look out the window to see what is going on when the sirens are screaming down your street!  You know it’s true, don’t even lie!

The EMS guys were awesome and very gentle with Nathan and made this momma feel better about the fact that I had called them to take my baby to the Emergency Room.  Jonathan was fascinated with the neck brace and thought that it was really cool that they taped him to the backboard to get him out of the house.  

Now during this whole process Jonathan was taking pictures with his DSi and I had Ann taking photos with her camera of Nathan’s ambulance ride.  We got pics of him getting on the neck brace and the stretcher and getting in the ambulance.  Now I know that you may again be accusing me of being a terrible mother, but hey one day he will look at those photos and think that it was the coolest that I had the event documented!  (Stop laughing at me.)

I took photos in the ambulance and in the ER waiting on the doctor.  I got to ride with him and discovered that the city of Wilmington needs to fix the 17th Street / Shipyard intersection, that puppy was rough in the back of the ambulance!  I’d hate to think how it must be for some patients that are in extreme distress.  The driver told me that there are some times that when they are really in need of  hurrying to the ER that you come off the seat even with the seat belt on, at that intersection. 

I am happy to report that Nate didn’t have anything broken but has a severely sprained neck with a vertebrae out of place at the top.  Not that we really learned anything at the ER cause, well that is another story, but I have a fantastic chiropractor who is giving my baby the care he really needs to get better. 

I’ve included a photo of his ambulance ride, him watching TV in the ER waiting to see a doctor (3 hours) on a backboard, and one of him laying on the couch with the neck brace that the chiropractor has put him in for the next 2 weeks at least.  (Note, the ER doctor prescribed Motrin, I am one mad momma!)